You don’t quite buy James Mason was a former American high school football champ, but he gives a typically excellent performance in this drama. It’s been called a searing indictment of Eisenhower era American; I didn’t think it was that – rather, more the rantings of an addict.
This starts slowly – Mason has a heart condition which is treated with cortisone, to which he becomes addicted. He goes off his head, blathering at PTA meetings about how they are educating the kids badly and it’s all a crock, abusing his wife for wasting his life, then trying to kill his own son because he reads the Bible and gets stuck up on Abraham and Isaac.
I guess you could read ‘searing indictment’ into that but he’s clearly off his head – his family love and support him (Barbara Rush gives a solid , un-showy performance as the wife), so is his best friend (Walter Matthau, excellent). There is a glimpse into some shadows – Rush refuses to get a job to help with the finances, Mason is clearly under the pump financially. So I’d be careful of over-analysing it (I know, I know – try telling that to Nicholas Ray fans) – but as a good old fashioned addiction melodrama it works a treat.
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